We didn't run. We scrambled. It was all knees and elbows and panic-breath.
My sneakers slapped the concrete, loud as gunshots in the dead quiet of the archive. Krivya was ahead, a ghost in the green emergency light, not making a sound. I could hear the drone behind us, a low hum like a fridge, but faster, angrier.
The shelves were a maze. I took a left. Krivya went right.
"Not that way!" I hissed, but she was gone.
I skidded around a corner and slammed my shoulder into a metal shelf. A cloud of dust puffed out. Old books shifted with a dry whisper. The humming was closer. I looked back.
The drone was gliding down the aisle. The blue ring around its middle pulsed. It wasn't chasing Krivya. It was following me.
My brain froze. My legs didn't. I bolted down another aisle, toward a sliver of dim light—the doorway. Almost there.
A shape stepped into the light. Tall, broad. The night janitor? My heart leapt, stupidly, for a human.
It wasn't human. It wore a janitor's grey uniform, but the face was wrong. Smooth. No nose, just slight bumps. No mouth. The eyes were dark glass lenses. It held a long metal pole with a flat, glowing pad on the end.
A Janitor. Not a drone. The real thing.
It raised the pole.
I twisted, threw myself sideways between two shelves. The pole swung down. It didn't hit me. It hit the space where I'd been. The air where it passed rippled, like heat over asphalt. The books on the shelf behind where I'd stood… their spines went blank. The titles just vanished.
My lungs burned. I crab-walked backward down the narrow gap between shelves. The Janitor turned its head. The lenses focused on me with a soft click.
Then, from above, a whisper. "Here."
I looked up. Krivya was on top of the shelves, lying flat. She reached a hand down.
I grabbed it. Her skin was cool, smooth like stone. She pulled. I kicked, scrambled, my feet knocking books off the shelves. I hauled myself up beside her just as the Janitor's pole stabbed into the space where my legs had been.
The top of the shelf was thick with dust. We were lying in it. I could taste it. It tasted like forgetting.
Krivya put a finger to her lips. Below, the Janitor stood still. The drone floated next to it, scanning. The blue light swept over the floor.
We didn't move. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears, in my throat. I was breathing through my nose, but it sounded like a roar. Krivya didn't seem to breathe at all.
The Janitor took a step. Then another. It moved away, down the aisle, the drone following. Their sounds faded.
Krivya sat up slowly. Dust fell from her hair like snow.
"We must exit through the primary ventilation conduit," she whispered. Her voice had that staticky edge again. The scare had worn off the softness from the memory-shard.
"Where's that?"
She pointed toward the back of the room. There was a grille high up on the wall, near the ceiling.
Getting down was worse than getting up. We had to jump. I landed hard, my ankle twisting. A sharp pain shot up my leg. I bit my lip to keep from crying out.
Krivya landed beside me like a cat. No sound.
"You are damaged."
"It's fine. Let's go."
The vent grille was screwed in. I had nothing. Krivya looked at the screws. She placed her fingertip on the head of one. A high-pitched whine, almost too quiet to hear. The screw spun out by itself and fell to the floor with a ping. She did the other three.
I pulled the grille off. The hole behind it was square, black, and smelled like old, dry air. Big enough to crawl through.
"You first," I said.
She flowed in. I followed. The metal duct was cold and tight. My elbows and knees banged against the sides. It was pitch black ahead. I could hear Krivya moving, a soft shushing sound, like fabric, but she wasn't wearing fabric that should make that sound.
We crawled forever. My ankle throbbed. Dust coated my tongue.
Then, light. A faint grey glow up ahead. An opening.
We spilled out into another alley, behind the library. The sky was turning from black to deep, dirty grey. Dawn was coming. The air was cold and wet. It smelled like rain and garbage.
I slumped against the wall, clutching my ankle. Krivya stood straight, looking up at the sky.
"We must find shelter. Your biometrics are erratic. You are in shock."
"I'm fine," I lied. My teeth were starting to chatter.
"You are not. Follow me."
She walked. I hobbled after her. We went through backstreets, past sleeping houses with dark windows. My neighborhood felt like a model town. Too quiet. Too still.
She stopped in front of a narrow, three-story building squeezed between a laundromat and a vacant lot. The sign said "The Hourglass Hotel" in faded letters. One of the letters in "Hotel" was burnt out. It said "The Hourglass Hot l."
It was the place. The place from my breakdown.
"No," I said. "Not here."
"It is a stable anomaly. A buffer zone. The Janitors' scans have low penetration here."
"The man. Arjun. He's here."
"The Curator. Yes. He will have medical supplies."
She walked up the steps to the peeling front door. It opened before she touched it.
The lobby was small. A dusty rug. A front desk with a bell. A single, dim bulb in a glass shade. And behind the desk, reading a newspaper, was Arjun.
He looked up. He didn't look surprised. He looked tired. The tiredness was deeper now, in his eyes, in the way his shoulders slumped.
"Took you long enough," he said, his voice a dry rasp. He folded the newspaper. The headline said something about sewer repair. "I felt the data spike at the library. Knew you'd come here eventually." His eyes moved to Krivya. They narrowed. "You've collected a fragment. You're… louder."
"We require assistance," Krivya said, ignoring him. "The catalyst is injured."
Arjun sighed. He came out from behind the desk. He was wearing slippers. "Catalyst. Is that what you're calling him?" He looked at me. "Can you walk?"
"Yeah."
"Liar. Come on."
He led us through a door behind the desk, down a narrow hallway, to a small room. It wasn't a hotel room. It was an office, but also a living space. A cot in the corner. A hotplate. Shelves stacked with weird stuff: old radios with their guts hanging out, boxes of screws, jars of cloudy liquid with things floating in them. A framed photo of a boy, about ten, smiling. The smile didn't reach his eyes.
"Sit," Arjun said, pointing to a rickety wooden chair.
I sat. He knelt, took my sneaker off. My ankle was swollen, turning purple.
"Not broken. Bad sprain." He got up, rummaged in a cupboard, and came back with a bandage and a small tin of smelly ointment. As he wrapped my ankle, his hands were rough but careful.
"Why are you helping us?" I asked. "You told the police about me on the bridge."
"I told them what I saw. Which was the truth. Doesn't mean I'm on their side." He tied off the bandage. "The Janitors… they have my son."
I looked at the photo on the shelf. "The one in the story you told me?"
"His name is Eli. He was like you. Saw things. Felt wrong in the world. He drew pictures… impossible pictures. Buildings that bent in the middle. People with too many shadows." Arjun's voice got thick. "The Janitors came for him. Not to delete him. To 'smooth' him. They said it was a mercy. Now he's… normal. Goes to school. Plays video games. Calls me 'Dad.' But his eyes…" Arjun looked at the photo. "There's nobody home behind them anymore. He's a shell. A very polite, hollow shell."
He stood up, wiping his hands on his pants. "I work for them. I'm a spotter. A Curator. I find thin places, people like you, and I report them. In return, they let Eli exist. They let me keep this place." He gestured around the room. "This hotel… it's built on a glitch. A slow one. Time here is… sticky. Sometimes, in the rooms upstairs, you can hear yesterday. Or tomorrow. It's why they let me keep it. It's a useful… observation post."
Krivya had been standing by the door, perfectly still. Now she spoke. "You are compromised. Your loyalty is divided."
"My loyalty is to my boy," Arjun snapped. Then he deflated. "But I'm sick of leading lambs to the slaughter. You're the first one who's come back. With… her." He nodded at Krivya. "That's new. That changes the math."
"What math?" I asked.
"The Janitors want stability. They'll delete anything that wobbles too much. Your girlfriend there is the biggest wobble I've ever seen. They will come for her. And you're attached. So they'll come for you too." He looked at me. "You have two choices. You let me call them right now. You hand her over. They'll take her apart, study her. They'll reset you. You'll forget all this. You'll go back to your life, hollow but safe. Eli's life."
"And the second choice?"
"You fight. You try to put her back together. You run. You hide. And you probably die. Or get deleted. Or end up like Eli." He rubbed his face. "There's a third option, but you won't like it."
"What?"
"There are others. Not Janitors. Not Sleepers. People in between. People who know, and who aren't working for the system. They hide. They trade information. They sometimes… fight back. They call themselves the Static."
"A resistance?" The word felt stupid coming out of my mouth. This wasn't a movie.
"More like a support group for the terminally aware," Arjun said with a grim smile. "They hang out in a place called The Cracked Bell. It's a bar. Or it looks like one. If you want to survive more than a day, you need to find them. They might help you. Or they might sell you out for a good price. They're not nice people. But they're free."
Krivya moved closer to me. "The Static. I have heard of this. Unregistered data clusters. They could possess information on other fragment locations."
My head was spinning. Janitors. Curators. The Static. Fragments. It was too much. My ankle hurt. I was so tired.
"I need to think," I mumbled.
"Think fast," Arjun said. "The library drone got a good look at you. They'll be running facial recognition through every camera in the city. You have hours, maybe less." He walked to the door. "There's a room at the end of the hall. Number seven. It's clean. No one uses it. Stay there. Don't leave. I'll bring you some food. And… I'll make a call. To the Static. See if they'll talk."
He left, closing the door behind him.
The silence in the room was heavy. Krivya stood looking at the shelves. She reached out and touched the photo of Eli. Her finger lingered on the glass over his smiling face.
"He is gone," she said softly.
"He's alive."
"A different definition of alive." She turned to me. "Eryx. The Curator is correct. The probability of our continued operational status is low. You should consider his first option."
"You mean I should let them delete you?"
"I am data. I can be copied. Archived. The you that is you would persist. In a form."
"But I'd forget. I'd forget you. I'd forget the mountain. I'd forget that any of this is real."
"Would that be so bad?" For a second, she sounded almost human. Sad.
I thought about it. Going back. To school. To my mom's worried looks. To the daydreams that were just daydreams. To being a loser, but a normal loser. The hollow would be filled with cement. Heavy, solid, permanent.
"Yes," I said. "It would be worse."
She nodded, as if she'd expected that answer. "Then we must find the Static."
There was a knock. Arjun came back in with two bowls of instant noodles. The smell of fake chicken filled the room. He put them on the desk.
"I made the call. They're willing to meet. Tonight. Midnight. At the bar. I'll take you." He looked at Krivya. "She can't come. They're scared of things like her. She stays here. She'll be safe enough. This place… muddles signals."
Krivya looked at me. "It is logical. I will remain and attempt to… process the new fragment. Integration is causing… disturbances."
"Disturbances?"
Before she could answer, her image flickered. For a half-second, she was gone, and in her place was the little girl from the memory, sitting at the yellow table. Then she was back. She blinked, slowly.
"See?" Arjun said. "She's glitching. She needs to stabilize. You need to eat and sleep. Room seven. Don't make me regret this."
Room seven was small. A bed, a dresser, a window looking out at the brick wall of the next building. It was clean, but it felt empty in a way that had nothing to do with furniture. The air was still. Too still.
I ate the noodles. They tasted like salt and plastic. Krivya sat on the floor in the corner, her eyes closed. A faint, shimmering light outlined her. She was humming, a single, low note.
I lay on the bed. The ceiling had a water stain shaped like a hand.
I thought about Eli. A boy turned into a shell. I thought about my mom, probably waking up right now, finding my bed empty. She'd call the police. Rowan would be involved. Everything was spiraling.
My eyes felt gritty. I closed them.
I dreamed of the mountain again. But Krivya wasn't there. I was alone. The wind was screaming. It was so cold my bones ached. I looked down at my hands. They were turning grey, cracking like old paint. I was freezing from the inside out.
I woke up with a gasp. The room was dark. The digital clock on the dresser said 11:47 PM.
Krivya was gone.
I sat up, panic jolting through me. Then I saw her. She was standing at the window, staring at the brick wall. Her reflection in the dark glass was blurry, doubled.
"I am here," she said, without turning.
"Are you… integrated?"
"The memory fragment is assimilated. It provides… context. The soup had no taste. The mother had no heartbeat. I knew I was alone before I knew what 'alone' meant." She finally turned. In the dim light from the clock, her eyes looked almost normal. Just a girl's eyes. "It hurts."
"I'm sorry."
"Do not be. It is data. Pain is data." She walked toward the bed. "The Curator will take you soon. You must be careful. The Static… they are survivors. Survivors are selfish."
"You sound like you know them."
"I know their type. In the system, processes that prioritize self-preservation often consume other processes." She sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress didn't dip. "I will be here. If you do not return by sunrise, I will assume you have been compromised. I will initiate dispersal protocol."
"What's that?"
"I will fragment myself again and scatter the pieces. To make deletion more difficult."
The door opened. Arjun stood there, holding a dark jacket. "Time to go. Put this on. Hood up."
I stood. My ankle screamed, but I could walk. I pulled the jacket on. It smelled like cigarettes and old rain.
I looked back at Krivya. She gave a small, stiff nod.
"Go."
I followed Arjun out into the hall, toward a future that felt as dark and tight as the air vent. But the hollow in my chest wasn't empty anymore. It was full of a new, sharp fear. And something else, under the fear. A tiny, stubborn spark.
The spark had a name. It wasn't hope. It was worse than hope.
It was curiosity.